Seasons

Like my fellow blogger, Ellie, I too love fall. Even though the days are hot here in California, there's a different slant to the sunlight, a different shade of blue in the sky, and a nip in the air most mornings, that signals fall has arrived – despite the sunny camouflage.

In thinking about the season, I've realized that I'm in the fall season of my life too. And that's OK. I can still remember the newness of life's experiences when I was a girl, the sense of time stretching uncomprehendingly before me, anxious for real life to "begin." Springtime, if you will. Then there was adolescence, painful at times, wanting to blend in, rebelling, moody, changeable, like a stormy April day. My 20s and early 30s were like days spent at the beach, careless in some ways, as I was sure the next day would be just as sunny and hot, and I had no need really to plan for the future. Early July. Later summer brought changes: a divorce, the end of a prolonged adolescence, a time of reckoning about what really mattered – family, friends, having a child, a career that was more of a calling than a job – and a new sense that time was ticking.

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But the fall season of life brings its own rewards; it's a different coming of age, a richer sense of fullness and possibility, a harvesting of wisdom, tempered, like the sunlight, by the knowledge that the days aren't endless. Of course, I can still feel all seasons in one. When Max asks how much the earth weighs, I recall my own childhood sense of wonder.

But it's fall that I love and have always felt is ripe with possibility and new beginnings. And, despite all my kvetching about perimenopause in this blog, I would not trade this season of my life for any other. How about you, reader?